Nokia 6233 review: Discreet business tool

A medium-sized candybar with a lot of nerves, Nokia 6233 is one of the current Nokia handsets that might interest you in case you are looking for non-smartphone 3G solution. What is more, the classic styled mobile offers a great TFT display, great stereo speakers, microSD card slot, and a 2 megapixel camera capable of capturing video in the exciting VGA resolution, just to name a few. Exciting is not the word to use when describing the phone itself, but as you would see if you read further on, it surely packs in some nice features.

Nokia 6233

Main advantages:

• 2 megapixel camera
• Video recording in VGA resolution
• microSD memory card slot (hot-swap)
• Metallic body frame/casing
• MP3 player and stereo FM radio
• QVGA display resolution
• 3G and EDGE support
• Stereo speakers with 3D effects
• Bluetooth, Infrared port and USB support
• Rather comfortable keypad and navigation

Main disadvantages:

• Lack of front video call camera
• No camera macro mode
• No camera LED flash
• FM radio has no RDS support
• Side buttons are rather hard to press

In terms of design and form factor the phone resembles a lot the budget mobiles Nokia 6020, 6030, 6070 and 6080. In technological aspect though, it most certainly outperforms all of those. Feature-wise the phone is almost identical to Nokia 6280.

There is one more version of the phone – the Nokia 6234. It has a different design but the same hardware – essentially, it is in fact a Vodafone branded version of Nokia 6233.

According to some, 6233 is meant to be the successor of the highly successful business mobiles 6230 and its enhanced version 6230i. They earned their fans with rock solid functionality, rich features, advanced yet conservative design and last but not least impressive battery life. Starting this review, we saw our task as to decide whether it’s a successful continuation of the Nokia 62-series. And when we talk 62-series, we mean business.

Nokia 6233 held in hand

Nokia 6233’s interface is identical to the interface used in several other recent Nokia phones - the user interface is the last generation of the Series 40 platform. That is why we are going to use several paragraphs from other reviews. A nice thing about this phone is that although it is the same “latest version” of the S40 UI, it features some innovations when compared to other “latest” S40 phones such as Nokia 6270, Nokia 6280, and Nokia 6131. We would not necessarily point those out as we go along, but you may be sure that they are there in the review.

As regards the retail package, besides the ordinary things, the box should include also a stereo headset HS-23 and a 64MB microSD card, but as we have always said – the contents of the retail package are country and market dependant. The phone itself is offered in black or silver. The test unit we got was black.